Free Jazz

291 Electro-Acoustic Night

Tony Bevan, Orphy Robinson, John Edwards, Ashley Wales and Mark Saunders

291 Bar, Wednesday 6th October 2004, 8.30pm, Entry £5/£3.

Following August's triumphant concert with guitar legend Derek Bailey, Bevan, Robinson, Edwards, Wales and Sanders perform a night of electro-acoustic music. Their new, and much anticipated CD "Bruised" will be released later in the year. Tony Bevan is best known for his playing on the rare and mighty Bass Saxophone, on which he is one of the world's

“John Cage's notion that the idea of a mistake is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically was strongly in evidence at 291 Hackney Road recently as a collective led by saxophonist Tony Bevan gathered for an evening of improvisation. The unsung heroes of British music and the formidable array of sounds he conjures from his powder-keg of an instrument bears testimony to this. A singular and agile voice on the rarely heard bass sax-ophone, he was the musical weathervane of the group, freely rotating with the currents or fighting the crosswinds as extemporisations veered from timid restraint to sonic clatter.

Seldom in the UK these days - now a resident of Barcelona - guitarist Derek Bailey opened quietly in the solo setting of which he is so fond with an emotionless scrawl of chiming harmonics and gentle body scarifying. A substantial congregation listened in widescreen as the celebrants adopted a side-by-side formation - drums in the middle, sax and electronics at either end - over the altar of this converted church. Part 1 merged stilted and abrasive murmurings with spluttering atonal concoctions as squawking scratches of low-tone steel erupted from Bailey and Bevan haemorrhaged into upper register, screeching, seething note-blurts and cacophonic wails: while Mark Sanders propelled The movement forward with furious brush work and accordion sounding lashings.

Movement two started with swooshing bleeps and squelching swathes of electronics from Ashley Wales as Bevan's gruff foghorn of muffled purring grew into whooshing helicopter blade churns.

Stark interludes and drifting cymbals from Sanders connected breathlessly with the twists and jolts of brilliantly inventive bassist John Edwards while Orphy Robinson's furious steel drum frenzy shrieked with clanging screams as proceedings clattered onwards like a distant mail train under moonlight in the desert outback.” - James McGowan